Sister Jeanne Marie, nurse

By Jacques Kelly, The Baltimore Sun

Sister Jeanne Marie Armstrong, who nursed and did physical therapy treatment for her fellow School Sisters of Notre Dame, died of a stroke Aug. 18 at her order's health care center in the Woodbrook section of Baltimore County. She was 86.

Born Jeanne Marie Armstrong in Baltimore, she was the daughter of John Ernest Armstrong and Lucille Marie Holliday. Raised in the Forest Park area, she attended All Saints School and was a 1945 graduate of the Institute of Notre Dame.

She was a graduate of the Mercy Hospital School of Nursing. In 1948, she entered the School Sisters of Notre Dame and received the name Sister Ernest after professing her religious vows in 1950.

After nursing at the Catholic University of America, she worked at what is now Notre Dame University of Maryland.

In 1952, she began caring for elderly sisters at Villa Maria at Notch Cliff in Baltimore County. She later was assigned to her order's infirmary at the mother house in Woodbrook. She remained there until 1972, when she moved to the St. Pius X Convent in Rodgers Forge. She taught biology at the parochial school and was a charge nurse at Dulaney-Towson Nursing and Convalescent Home.

Sister Jeanne Marie then took training in physical therapy at St. Joseph and Good Samaritan hospitals in 1977 and later directed physical therapy at Villa Assumpta. Members of her order said she was responsible for founding, designing, organizing and running the department.

Sister Jeanne Marie became health care minister at St. Augustine Church in Elkridge in 1985 and was later a chaplain at Stella Maris Hospice, Dulaney Valley. In 2003, she moved to back to Villa Assumpta, where she remained until her death.

A memorial Mass will be celebrated at 10 a.m. Thursday at Villa Assumpta, 6401 N. Charles St.